While creating a signup form that gives subscribers an unlimited number of frequency options would be tough to pull off without making the form look awkward and intimidating, it’s easy to offer them a couple of different options.

All it takes is a little HTML know-how and a few minutes to set up an extra list or 2.

First, Create 2 Lists

In this example, we’re going to give our blog’s email subscribers the option to sign up for daily emails, or weekly ones.

First, let’s create lists for each of those subscriptions. I’ve named mine blog-daily and blog-weekly. You’ll need to choose different names, but you’ll probably want to follow a similar naming scheme.

(Need to learn how to create a list? See the Getting Started section of our Knowledge Base.)

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25 Comments

One curiosity I have is how you recommend handling subscribers for your list vs. your blog. In other words, do you typically set up your Blog Broadcast as a separate list from your, say, "product subscriber" list so that if someone unsubscribes from the blog they at least remain on your product list?

If you do this, and were to subscribe the user to your Blog Broadcast automatically when he subscribes to your product list, can the radio value option be passed to the Blog Broadcast list at signup?

Ryan, that doesn’t sound confusing at all. I have the same problem.
I was just thinking of a monthly or quarterly ‘digest’ of my blog posts for my non-blog newletter subscribers and the subscribers of my ecourse.

I am still puzzling how to avoid double send-outs because newsletter and ecourse subscribers can be in both lists, but must not. Also they can be subscribers in my daily blog-broadcast already.

I think one option people would appreciate is an additional method to move from one list to another, so if someone subscribes daily, and decides that weekly would be more appropriate, it is somehow intuitive.

For example, we run the newsletter for this blog independently of our other lists, since people are signing up to it for different information than say, our Test Drive subscribers.

That way, people have the option to sign up to one or both (and in fact we recommend the blog to our Test Drive subscribers), instead of having to sign up to both or neither.

Now, whether you hold separate signups for each list, or use an automation rule to offer your blog newsletter as an added bonus for signing up to your other list, is really up to you. I think you can make good arguments for and against that.

Hannelore,

If you’re sending the same exact content to multiple lists, use our "include lists" feature to check off which lists you want to email (we’ll automatically deduplicate the broadcast so people only get one copy each).

If you’re not sending exactly identical content in both messages, but highly similar content, decide which message you want to go to people who happen to be subscribed to both lists. Send that one out. Then, before you send the other one, use the "exclude lists" feature to suppress the appropriate subscribers so they don’t get both messages.

Your listname has to be unique. I used blog-daily and blog-weekly as examples here, but your own listnames will be different from that. Try an abbreviation of your blog’s name, followed by -daily or -weekly.

Andy,

One way to get at that is to use 2 automation rules – one to unsubscribe someone from the weekly list when they subscribe to the daily one, and another one to unsubscribe from the daily one when they subscribe to the weekly one.

You’d include something in the footer of each list’s Blog Broadcasts saying "Want to get daily (weekly) emails instead? Fill out the form here (link to opt-in page) and choose daily (weekly)."

It’s a bit of a workaround but quite manageable. In the meantime, I’ll check with our developers about the feasibility of something like what you’re suggesting.

Colin I checked out your terra imports site. Has to be one of the more effectively executed "2.0" dealership websites I have discovered. Looks like you might be using Kayako for your support system too, yes? Would be interested in connecting with you. You can view my LinkedIn profile here – http://www.linkedin.com/in/rgerardi. Hope to hear from you. -Ryan

Does AWeber have any immediate plans to implement a multiple list signup process, or can we twist your arms a little to look a bit more closely at this as an option?

From the point of view of making it "easy" for our customers… if we in fact do have multiple offers – i.e. e-course, newsletter, and rss feed for example – it makes sense if someone can sign up for all of them at the same time if they want to… otherwise it’s hit the back button, check a different box, resubmit and verify email address multiple times.

I haven’t tested it, but it seems like this would also be possible to do with the JavaScript file if you edit the end of the .js file with these modifications and then saved a copy of it to your own host to embed in your site instead. Can anyone verify this either way?

Yeah, I just opened the javascript file that Aweber generates for the form, copied all the code to a new .js file on my computer and modified the code at the very end with what was explained above in this post for the HTML version of the form. Then I saved the js file, uploaded it to my host, and called for that javascript file in my blogs footer.php instead of the one that AWeber generates. Works fine for offering users the option of subscribing to a daily email or a weekly one.

That’s definitely something you can do (in effect it’s the same as using the raw HTML we provide for the form instead of the JavaScript), but I suspect that most people aren’t comfortable creating/editing .js files.

Good thinking, though… thanks for sharing!

tom

1/11/2010 7:56 am

Just wondering once i’ve done this, how to copy the blog broadcast exactly to the new ‘weekly’ list?

Thanks for this tip! Unfortunately, the code provided isn’t equivalent/compatible with the current HTML code automatically generated & therefore the radio buttons don’t appear properly.

I have limited HTML knowledge, but enough to do as instructed & place the respective new code where I want. I get the separate choices for Daily / Weekly, but within the radio buttons I get rectangles & the respective “values” showing up on my sign-up widget :-(.